CYRIL AND A WEDDING
The twelfth was a beautiful day. Clear, frosty
air set the blood to tingling and the eyes to sparkling,
even if it were not your wedding day; while
if it were–

It _was_ Marie Hawthorn’s wedding day, and
certainly her eyes sparkled and her blood tingled
as she threw open the window of her room and
breathed long and deep of the fresh morning air
before going down to breakfast.

“They say `Happy is the bride that the sun
shines on,’ ” she whispered softly to an English
sparrow that cocked his eye at her from a
neighboring tree branch. “As if a bride wouldn’t
be happy, sun or no sun,” she scoffed tenderly,
as she turned to go down-stairs.

As it happens, however, tingling blood and
sparkling eyes are a matter of more than weather,
or even weddings, as was proved a little later
when the telephone bell rang.

Kate answered the ring.

“Hullo, is that you, Kate?” called a despairing
voice.

“Yes. Good morning, Bertram. Isn’t this
a fine day for the wedding?”

“Fine! Oh, yes, I suppose so, though I must
confess I haven’t noticed it–and you wouldn’t,
if you had a lunatic on your hands.”

“A lunatic!”

“Yes. Maybe you have, though. Is Marie
rampaging around the house like a wild creature,
and asking ten questions and making twenty
threats to the minute?”

“Certainly not! Don’t be absurd, Bertram.
What do you mean?”

“See here, Kate, that show comes off at twelve
sharp, doesn’t it?”

“Show, indeed!” retorted Kate, indignantly.
“The _wedding_ is at noon sharp–as the best man
should know very well.”

“All right; then tell Billy, please, to see that it
is sharp, or I won’t answer for the consequences.”

“What do you mean? What is the matter?”

“Cyril. He’s broken loose at last. I’ve been
expecting it all along. I’ve simply marvelled at
the meekness with which he has submitted himself
to be tied up with white ribbons and topped
with roses.”

“Nonsense, Bertram!”

“Well, it amounts to that. Anyhow, he thinks
it does, and he’s wild. I wish you could have
heard the thunderous performance on his piano
with which he woke me up this morning. Billy
says he plays everything–his past, present,
and future. All is, if he was playing his future
this morning, I pity the girl who’s got to live it
with him.”

“Bertram!”

Bertram chuckled remorselessly.

“Well, I do. But I’ll warrant he wasn’t
playing his future this morning. He was playing his
present–the wedding. You see, he’s just waked
up to the fact that it’ll be a perfect orgy of women
and other confusion, and he doesn’t like it. All
the samee,{sic} I’ve had to assure him just fourteen
times this morning that the ring, the license, the
carriage, the minister’s fee, and my sanity are
all O. K. When he isn’t asking questions he’s
making threats to snake the parson up there an
hour ahead of time and be off with Marie before a
soul comes.”

“What an absurd idea!”

“Cyril doesn’t think so. Indeed, Kate, I’ve
had a hard struggle to convince him that the
guests wouldn’t think it the most delightful
experience of their lives if they should come and
find the ceremony over with and the bride gone.”

“Well, you remind Cyril, please, that there
are other people besides himself concerned in
this wedding,” observed Kate, icily.

“I have,” purred Bertram, “and he says all
right, let them have it, then. He’s gone now to
look up proxy marriages, I believe.”

“Proxy marriages, indeed! Come, come, Bertram,
I’ve got something to do this morning
besides to stand here listening to your nonsense.
See that you and Cyril get here on time–that’s
all!” And she hung up the receiver with an
impatient jerk.

She turned to confront the startled eyes of the
bride elect.

“What is it? Is anything wrong–with
Cyril?” faltered Marie.

Kate laughed and raised her eyebrows slightly.

“Nothing but a little stage fright, my dear.”

“Stage fright!”

“Yes. Bertram says he’s trying to find some
one to play his r<o^>le, I believe, in the ceremony.”

“_Mrs. Hartwell!_”

At the look of dismayed terror that came into
Marie’s face, Mrs. Hartwell laughed reassuringly.

“There, there, dear child, don’t look so horror-
stricken. There probably never was a man yet
who wouldn’t have fled from the wedding part
of his marriage if he could; and you know how
Cyril hates fuss and feathers. The wonder to me
is that he’s stood it as long as he has. I thought I
saw it coming, last night at the rehearsal–and
now I know I did.”

Marie still looked distressed.

“But he never said–I thought–” She
stopped helplessly.

“Of course he didn’t, child. He never said
anything but that he loved you, and he never
thought anything but that you were going to be
his. Men never do–till the wedding day. Then
they never think of anything but a place to run,”
she finished laughingly, as she began to arrange
on a stand the quantity of little white boxes
waiting for her.

“But if he’d told me–in time, I wouldn’t have
had a thing–but the minister,” faltered Marie.

“And when you think so much of a pretty
wedding, too? Nonsense! It isn’t good for a
man, to give up to his whims like that!”

Marie’s cheeks grew a deeper pink. Her
nostrils dilated a little.

“It wouldn’t be a `whim,’ Mrs. Hartwell, and
I should be _glad_ to give up,” she said with decision.

Mrs. Hartwell laughed again, her amused eyes
on Marie’s face.

“Dear me, child! don’t you know that if men
had their way, they’d–well, if men married
men there’d never be such a thing in the world
as a shower bouquet or a piece of wedding cake!”

There was no reply. A little precipitately
Marie turned and hurried away. A moment
later she was laying a restraining hand on Billy,
who was filling tall vases with superb long-stemmed
roses in the kitchen.

“Billy, please,” she panted, “couldn’t we
do without those? Couldn’t we send them to
some–some hospital?–and the wedding cake,
too, and–”

“The wedding cake–to some _hospital!_”

“No, of course not–to the hospital. It
would make them sick to eat it, wouldn’t it?”
That there was no shadow of a smile on Marie’s
face showed how desperate, indeed, was her state
of mind. “I only meant that I didn’t want them
myself, nor the shower bouquet, nor the rooms
darkened, nor little Kate as the flower girl–and
would you mind very much if I asked you not
to be my maid of honor?”

“_Marie!_”

Marie covered her face with her hands then and
began to sob brokenly; so there was nothing for
Billy to do but to take her into her arms with
soothing little murmurs and pettings. By degrees,
then, the whole story came out.

Billy almost laughed–but she almost cried,
too. Then she said:

“Dearie, I don’t believe Cyril feels or acts
half so bad as Bertram and Kate make out, and,
anyhow, if he did, it’s too late now to–to send
the wedding cake to the hospital, or make any
other of the little changes you suggest.” Billy’s
lips puckered into a half-smile, but her eyes were
grave. “Besides, there are your music pupils
trimming the living-room this minute with evergreen,
there’s little Kate making her flower-girl
wreath, and Mrs. Hartwell stacking cake boxes
in the hall, to say nothing of Rosa gloating over
the best china in the dining-room, and Aunt
Hannah putting purple bows into the new lace
cap she’s counting on wearing. Only think how
disappointed they’d all be if I should say: `Never
mind–stop that. Marie’s just going to have a
minister. No fuss, no feathers!’ Why, dearie,
even the roses are hanging their heads for grief,”
she went on mistily, lifting with gentle fingers
one of the full-petalled pink beauties near her.
“Besides, there’s your–guests.”

“Oh, of course, I knew I couldn’t–really,”
sighed Marie, as she turned to go up-stairs, all
the light and joy gone from her face.

Billy, once assured that Marie was out of
hearing, ran to the telephone.

A moment later Cyril’s tersely nervous “Good
morning, Billy,” came across the line.

Billy drew in her breath and cast a hurriedly
apprehensive glance over her shoulder to make
sure Marie was not near.

“Cyril,” she called in a low voice, “if you care
a shred for Marie, for heaven’s sake call her up
and tell her that you dote on pink roses, and pink
ribbons, and pink breakfasts–and pink wedding
cake!”

“But I don’t.”

“Oh, yes, you do–to-day! You would–if
you could see Marie now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing, only she overheard part of Bertram’s
nonsensical talk with Kate a little while ago, and
she’s ready to cast the last ravelling of white satin
and conventionality behind her, and go with you
to the justice of the peace.”

“Sensible girl!”

“Yes, but she can’t, you know, with fifty
guests coming to the wedding, and twice as many
more to the reception. Honestly, Cyril, she’s
broken-hearted. You must do something. She’s
–coming!” And the receiver clicked sharply
into place.

Five minutes later Marie was called to the
telephone. Dejectedly, wistful-eyed, she went.
Just what were the words that hummed across the
wire into the pink little ear of the bride-to-be,
Billy never knew; but a Marie that was anything
but wistful-eyed and dejected left the telephone
a little later, and was heard very soon in the room
above trilling merry snatches of a little song.
Contentedly, then, Billy went back to her roses.

It was a pretty wedding, a very pretty wedding.
Every one said that. The pink and green of the
decorations, the soft lights (Kate had had her
way about darkening the rooms), the pretty frocks
and smiling faces of the guests all helped. Then
there were the dainty flower girl, little Kate, the
charming maid of honor, Billy, the stalwart,
handsome best man, Bertram, to say nothing of
the delicately beautiful bride, who looked like
some fairy visitor from another world in the floating
shimmer of her gossamer silk and tulle. There
was, too, not quite unnoticed, the bridegroom;
tall, of distinguished bearing, and with features
that were clear cut and-to-day-rather pale.

Then came the reception–the “women and
confusion “of Cyril’s fears–followed by the
going away of the bride and groom with its merry
warfare of confetti and old shoes.

At four o’clock, however, with only William
and Bertram remaining for guests, something like
quiet descended at last on the little house.

Only the added color and the swift glance
showed that Billy heard, for when she spoke she
said:

“And didn’t Cyril behave beautifully? ‘Most
every time I looked at him he was talking to some
woman.”

“Oh, no, he wasn’t–begging your pardon,
my dear,” objected Bertram. “I watched him,
too, even more closely than you did, and it was
always the _woman_ who was talking to _Cyril!_”

Billy laughed.

“Well, anyhow,” she maintained, “he listened.
He didn’t run away.”

“As if a bridegroom could!” cried Kate.

“I’m going to,” avowed Bertram, his nose in
the air.

“Pooh!” scoffed Kate. Then she added
eagerly: “You must be married in church, Billy,
and in the evening.”

Bertram’s nose came suddenly out of the air.
His eyes met Kate’s squarely.

“Billy hasn’t decided yet how _she_ does want
to be married,” he said with unnecessary emphasis.

Billy laughed and interposed a quick change of
subject.

“I think people had a pretty good time, too,
for a wedding, don’t you?” she asked. “I was
sorry Mary Jane couldn’t be here–’twould have
been such a good chance for him to meet our
friends.”

“As–_Mary Jane?_” asked Bertram, a little
stiffly.

“Really, my dear,” murmured Aunt Hannah,
“I think it _would_ be more respectful to call him
by his name.”

“By the way, what is his name?” questioned
William.

“That’s what we don’t know,” laughed Billy.

“Well, you know the `Arkwright,’ don’t you?”
put in Bertram. Bertram, too, laughed, but it
was a little forcedly. “I suppose if you knew his
name was `Methuselah,’ you wouldn’t call him
that–yet, would you?”

Billy clapped her hands, and threw a merry
glance at Aunt Hannah.

“There! we never thought of `Methuselah,’ ”
she gurgled gleefully. “Maybe it _is_ `Methuselah,’
now–`Methuselah John’! You see, he’s told
us to try to guess it,” she explained, turning to
William; “but, honestly, I don’t believe, whatever
it is, I’ll ever think of him as anything but `Mary
Jane.’ ”

“Well, as far as I can judge, he has nobody
but himself to thank for that, so he can’t do any
complaining,” smiled William, as he rose to go.
“Well, how about it, Bertram? I suppose you’re
going to stay a while to comfort the lonely–eh,
boy?”

“Of course he is–and so are you, too, Uncle
William,” spoke up Billy, with affectionate
cordiality. “As if I’d let you go back to a forlorn
dinner in that great house to-night! Indeed,
no!”

I. How shall the burial rite be read?
The solemn song be sung?
The requiem for the loveliest dead,
That ever died so young?
II. Her friends are gazing on her,
And on her gaudy bier,
And weep!–oh! to dishonor
Dead beauty with a tear!
III. They loved her for her wealth–
And they hated her for her pride–
But she grew in feeble health,
And they _love_ her–that she died.
IV. They tell me (while they speak
Of her “costly broider’d pall”)
That my voice is growing weak–
That I should not sing at all–
V. Or that my tone should be
Tun’d to such solemn song
So mournfully–so mournfully,
That the dead may feel no wrong.
VI. But she is gone above,
With young Hope at her side,
And I am drunk with love
Of the dead, who is my bride.–

VII. Of the dead–dead who lies
All perfum’d there,
With the death upon her eyes.
And the life upon her hair.
VIII. Thus on the coffin loud and long
I strike–the murmur sent
Through the gray chambers to my song,
Shall be the accompaniment.
IX. Thou diedst in thy life’s June–
But thou didst not die too fair:
Thou didst not die too soon,
Nor with too calm an air.
X. From more than friends on earth,
Thy life and love are riven,
To join the untainted mirth
Of more than thrones in heaven.–
XI. Therefore, to thee this night
I will no requiem raise,
But waft thee on thy flight,
With a Pæan of old days.

by Robert Burns
The wintry west extends his blast,
And hail and rain does blaw;
Or the stormy north sends driving forth
The blinding sleet and snaw;
While tumbling brown, the burn comes down,
And roars frae bank to brae;
And bird and beast in covert rest,
And pass the heartless day.

“The sweeping blast, the sky o’ercast,”
The joyless winter day
Let others fear, to me more dear
Than all the pride of May:
The tempest’s howl, it soothes my soul,
My griefs it seems to join;
The leafless trees my fancy please,
Their fate resembles mine!

Thou Power Supreme, whose mighty scheme
These woes of mine fulfil,
Here, firm, I rest, they must be best,
Because they are Thy will!
Then all I want (O, do thou grant
This one request of mine!)
Since to enjoy Thou dost deny,
Assist me to resign!

by Edgar Allan Poe
How often we forget all time, when lone
Admiring Nature’s universal throne;
Her woods–her wilds–her mountains–the intense
Reply of Hers to Our intelligence!
I. In youth I have known one with whom the Earth
In secret communing held–as he with it,
In daylight, and in beauty, from his birth:
Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit
From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth
A passionate light such for his spirit was fit–
And yet that spirit knew–not in the hour
Of its own fervor–what had o’er it power.
II. Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought
To a ferver [1] by the moonbeam that hangs o’er,
But I will half believe that wild light fraught
With more of sovereignty than ancient lore
Hath ever told–or is it of a thought
The unembodied essence, and no more
That with a quickening spell doth o’er us pass
As dew of the night-time, o’er the summer grass?
III. Doth o’er us pass, when, as th’ expanding eye
To the loved object–so the tear to the lid
Will start, which lately slept in apathy?
And yet it need not be–(that object) hid
From us in life–but common–which doth lie
Each hour before us–but then only bid
With a strange sound, as of a harp-string broken
T’ awake us–’Tis a symbol and a token–
IV. Of what in other worlds shall be–and given
In beauty by our God, to those alone
Who otherwise would fall from life and Heaven
Drawn by their heart’s passion, and that tone,
That high tone of the spirit which hath striven
Though not with Faith–with godliness–whose throne
With desperate energy ‘t hath beaten down;
Wearing its own deep feeling as a crown.

For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,
Brightly expressive as the twins of Leda,
Shall find her own sweet name, that, nestling lies
Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.
Search narrowly the lines!–they hold a treasure
Divine–a talisman–an amulet
That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure–
The words–the syllables! Do not forget
The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor!
And yet there is in this no Gordian knot
Which one might not undo without a sabre,
If one could merely comprehend the plot.
Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering
Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus
Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing
Of poets by poets–as the name is a poet’s, too.
Its letters, although naturally lying
Like the knight Pinto–Mendez Ferdinando–
Still form a synonym for Truth–Cease trying!
You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do.

by Edgar Allan Poe
By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule–
From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime,
Out of SPACE–out of TIME.

Bottomless vales and boundless floods,
And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,
With forms that no man can discover
For the dews that drip all over;
Mountains toppling evermore
Into seas without a shore;
Seas that restlessly aspire,
Surging, unto skies of fire;
Lakes that endlessly outspread
Their lone waters–lone and dead,
Their still waters–still and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily.

By the lakes that thus outspread
Their lone waters, lone and dead,–
Their sad waters, sad and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily,–

By the mountains–near the river
Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,–
By the gray woods,–by the swamp
Where the toad and the newt encamp,–
By the dismal tarns and pools
Where dwell the Ghouls,–
By each spot the most unholy–
In each nook most melancholy,–

There the traveller meets aghast
Sheeted Memories of the past–
Shrouded forms that start and sigh
As they pass the wanderer by–
White-robed forms of friends long given,
In agony, to the Earth–and Heaven.

For the heart whose woes are legion
‘Tis a peaceful, soothing region–
For the spirit that walks in shadow
‘Tis–oh, ’tis an Eldorado!
But the traveller, travelling through it,
May not–dare not openly view it;
Never its mysteries are exposed
To the weak human eye unclosed;
So wills its King, who hath forbid
The uplifting of the fringed lid;
And thus the sad Soul that here passes
Beholds it but through darkened glasses.

By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only.

Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have wandered home but newly
From this ultimate dim Thule.

Just from the sentry’s tramp
(I must take it again at ten),
I have laid my musket down,
And seized instead my pen;
For, pacing my lonely round
In the chilly twilight gray,
The thought, dear Mary, came,
That this is St. Valentine’s Day.

And with the thought there came
A glimpse of the happy time
When a school-boy’s first attempt
I sent you, in borrowed rhyme,
On a gilt-edged sheet, embossed
With many a quaint design,
And signed, in school-boy hand,
“Your loving Valentine.”

The years have come and gone,–
Have flown, I know not where, –
And the school-boy’s merry face
Is grave with manhood’s care;
But the heart of the man still beats
At the well-remembered name,
And on this St. Valentine’s Day
His choice is still the same.

There was a time– ah, well!
Think not that I repine
When I dreamed this happy day
Would smile on you as mine;
But I heard my country’s call;
I knew her need was sore.
Thank God, no selfish thought
Withheld me from the war.

But when the dear old flag
Shall float in its ancient pride,
When the twain shall be made one,
And feuds no more divide,–
I will lay my musket down,
My martial garb resign,
And turn my joyous feet
Toward home and Valentine.